California Gov Newsom boosts AI regulation as he eyes 2028 presidential run

San Francisco, United States – In his last few executive orders signed as California governor, Gavin Newsom, whose final term ends in January, issued one asking for independent verification of artificial intelligence models and set up an expert committee to create kill switches for AI agents that could go rogue and cause harm.

In 2024, Newsom vetoed a bill, passed in the state assembly, asking for similar requirements that the governor has now called for in his executive order. Newsom said at the time that it would amount to “thwarting the promise of this technology”.

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Now eyeing a 2028 United States presidential run, he wants to expand the definition of safety incidents, potentially to include the recent series of safety breaches, explore a kill switch and include other measures that were in the vetoed bill.

“He is in a lame duck period here,” says Alex Hanna, director of research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), unsure that the measures will pass in the remainder of his term. “He is setting up his next thing.”

US voters are increasingly concerned about AI safety, data centres and job losses, and this could show Newsom is acting to address this, Hanna says.

After vetoing the 2024 bill, Newsom had asked Scott Wiener, the state senator who drafted the bill, to redraft it in consultation with an expert committee. He signed that frontier AI bill, the nation’s first, into law in October 2025. It asks large developers to disclose certain safety incidents, including the deaths of 50 or more people, large-scale cyberattacks or monetary theft.

Monopoly of big AI companies

Industry representatives, too, had rallied against the bill.